


Renegade

by UtterPandamonium



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abused Frisk (Undertale), Agender Frisk, Alternate Universe Hopping, But also, Chara Being An Asshole, Flavor Text Narrator Chara, Frisk Needs A Hug, Genderfluid Chara, Mental Instability, Multi, Sans Has Issues, Soft Chara, Undertale Genocide Route, Undertale Genocide Route MEETS Undertale Pacifist Route, Undertale Pacifist Route, Unreliable Narrator, no it's not swaptale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 14:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12773415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UtterPandamonium/pseuds/UtterPandamonium
Summary: Chara decides that they’re bored of the same old timelines repeating over and over again and that they want to play a new game. Needless to say, Frisk pays the price.Alternatively: Genocide, meet Pacifist; Pacifist, this is Genocide. Oh, you two aren’t getting along? Don’t worry about it. How about you two come and meet a lot of other people like you?





	Renegade

**_Perhaps we can reach a compromise. You still have something I want. Give it to me, and I will bring this world back._ **

_Yes._

**_Then it is agreed. You will give me your soul._ **

A moment’s hesitation. _Yes._

**_Then it is done._ **

__

The first thing you see when you wake up is yellow-gold-jade. It takes a minute before the swaths and spots of color dancing hazily before your blurry eyes reforms into golden flowers.

Rising shakily to your feet, you hesitantly brush a finger against the soft, velvety petal of a buttercup, almost unable to comprehend that it’s real. But it **is** real: its soft purity is all too real beneath your fingertips. It’s real. Everything’s back the way it was before.

You begin to sob.

( ** _but nobody came_** )

__

“lemme give you some advice about fighting my brother. **don’t.** ”

Horrorstruck, you stare disbelievingly up into the skeleton’s blank, harsh eyes. _That’s not what he’s supposed to say,_ you think numbly, mind reeling.

“capishe?” Sans asks lowly, dark gaze just a little too knowing as he leans towards you and his pupils disappear, lost amid a sea of pitch-black and _nonononono_ —

Before you’re even able to process what’s happening, you’re at the save screen and your hand is on the RESET button, and then you’re lying on a patch of golden flowers once more. An exasperated sigh echoes through your mind, a flicker of irritation that isn’t really yours rippling through you. **_Scaredy-cat_** , Chara huffs, clearly annoyed with you. **_He couldn’t do anything to you, you know. You know all his moves, Frisk. And if he did manage to get you, it’s not like it’d matter in the long run. We’d load, and everything would just end up right back the way it was before he killed you._**

Biting your lower lip, you stare down at your shoes, knowing all too well that it wasn’t fear that’d driven you—more like that guilt currently gnawing at your chest. You never wanted to fight Papyrus. You never wanted to kill him.

 ** _Oh, didn’t you?_** Chara sing-songs.

__

“Don’t kill and don’t be killed, alright?”

__

You don’t want this.

You don’t want this! You just—you can’t sit back and **watch** them do this! You **can’t**! All these monsters were your friends, and Chara just… They won’t stop **killing** the ones you love. And you won’t let them do this. You just…. You’re so tired of this. Of **everything**. And you **can’t** let them make you do this anymore!

 ** _Oh_** , Chara drawls coyly, sounding too amused. **_Is that so?_**

You firmly tell Chara that you’re not scared of them, and you won’t let them manipulate you any more than they already have. You say that this is all going to change, that you’re going to spare everyone now. And you remind them that, despite what they keep saying, how much they’ve been lying to you about what **you** want in an attempt to mess with your head, you’ve always wanted to show everyone mercy.

A childish, grating giggle. **_Mercy?_** they repeat mockingly, feigning disbelief. **_Is that your way of saying genocide?_** Their gaze darkens, something jaded and bitter entering it. ** _Don’t lie to me, partner. The only thing you want to show them is the edge of a knife._**

You remind them that the genocide was their fault.

A moment’s stunned silence. Then: laughter, harsh, shrill. It pierces your ears. **_You’re really still blaming it on me?_** Chara questions hysterically, scarlet eyes wide, voice strangely distorted (almost glitching). **_You could have stayed with your little_** family ** _if you’d wanted to, with those stupid skeletons and mom and dad and the lovebirds._**

Silently, you wonder about the disdain that enters their voice when they start talking about family, but decide not to ask them about it. That doesn’t really matter to you right now: you just need to focus on making sure that they don’t hurt anyone else.

 ** _You were the one who decided to kill, Frisk,_** the fallen human trills childishly, smile widening eerily. **_To fight. Alone, I would not have been able to do so much as to take one HP from a Whimsun. You_** chose ** _this path. And you killed them all._** Gazing at you with almost curious blood-red eyes, they tilt their head, seemingly considering you. ** _Do you really not know this? Or do you know it, but you still think your actions do not have consequences?_**

Frowning, you remind Chara that you never knew that they were there, so you didn’t—couldn’t—have known that they would have made you do this… and you never would’ve reset if you thought anything like **this** would happen.

The ghost giggles bitterly. **_Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, is it not?_** They meet your gaze, a cruel glint in their now-pitch black eyes. **_And we both know that kids like us should be burning there._**

You repeat that it’s Chara’s fault and that you won’t let them hurt anyone ever again.

Incredulous, they chuckle, something strange and dark trickling from their eyes and down their face. **_Let me? Have you forgotten?_** The demon raises a hand: after a moment, you suddenly feel hollow, your soul materializing in their grasp.

And then they **squeeze.**

As you’re gasping in pain on the ground, Chara smirks at you. **_I’m stronger than you, you know? I’m the one in control here now, partner. You gave me your soul._** After a prolonged moment, they let go of your soul: it disappears again, finding its home in your chest once more (for safekeeping, as they always say). **_Let’s see if I can’t remind you who’s in charge again, hm?_**

(Seventeen resets later, after they’ve made you kill everyone and destroy the world seventeen times—even mocking you by acting like **you’re** the one in control and suggesting that you take a different path if you recreate the world again—Chara seems to decide that you’ve gotten the memo. Or maybe they just get bored with it all.)

__

“W—WELL, THAT’S NOT WHAT I EXPECTED.” A weak, toothy grin: the light in Papyrus’s eyes slowly begins to dim. “BUT… ST—STILL! I BELIEVE IN YOU! YOU CAN DO A LITTLE BETTER, EVEN IF YOU DON’T THINK SO! I—I PROMISE!”

Cruel joy that isn’t yours twists up your lips. You feel tears burning behind your eyes, sorrow that Chara won’t let show, because they just can’t bear to let anyone know that you’re not the one at fault here. _I can’t._

__

“listen. friendship... it’s really great, right? let’s quit fighting.”

You can’t.

Sans dodges your swipe. “woah,” he drawls, “you look really pissed off. heh-heh…” His eyes turn dark. “did I getcha?”

Haha… You’ve let yourself “get dunked on” hundreds of times, hoping it’d make a difference: that, somehow, he’ll realize that you’re not in control and forgive you for killing his brother and get Chara out of your head. It never works.

Of course, you’ll still try again. Right now, Chara’s in control, but later they’ll give you the choice to fight or spare him if you want.  Eventually, they always let you do that.

You still don’t know why they do it: you always spare him, and after a few loads caused by his killing you, they always get exasperated with you, seize control, and kill him. Just what are they expecting you to do?

Well, at least you have a chance, this way. Maybe someday, Sans’ll realize that you don’t really want to do this. You can only hope.

__

As you lie under the covers, you listen as gentle footsteps pad into your room, pause, then tiptoe back out. Frozen, you stay still for a minute, then—once you hear the door click shut—poke your head out from under the plush, fuzzy blankets and look around.

A slice of butterscotch-cinnamon pie is sitting on the ground, seemingly left behind for you along with a fork, knife, and spoon. Cautiously, you slip silently out of bed, hesitantly bending down and picking up the most convenient utensil at hand: a fork. After hovering over it for a moment, you awkwardly arrange your limbs into a cross-legged sitting position. _Criss cross applesauce,_ you think, a distant memory returning to you.

When did you learn that? You think one of your “parents” told you that, so it probably must have been with one of the nicer families. The Johnsons? The Fitzgeralds? The Parkers? You don’t really remember: you’ve been repeating the same few days for so long that sometimes it’s hard to remember **anything**. Besides, you’ve always tried to forget a lot of the families they sent you to, anyway, which makes things a little harder.

You guess it doesn’t really matter. None of them let you stay for good, anyway, and you know (or you hope, anyway) you’ll never have to see any of them again, so you brush it aside and use the fork to cut off a small piece of the pie, spearing the section with the utensil. After blowing on it with all your might—just to be sure, you don’t want to burn yourself on it—you chew and swallow the bite of pie. It’s delicious: gooey and sweet and spicy and crispy in all of the right ways.

It makes tears well up in your eyes, because this is it, isn’t it? It’s all over, all finally over—you’ve won. For some reason, Chara has let you get back to around where you were before you decided to reset, and you won’t let their mercy go in vain. Now, you **won’t** reset and start all over again. You’ll never even use your determination to reset—not even to **load** —if you get hurt (or even die again), because you just can’t take the chance that they’ll get into your head again!

You can be happy here: you know that now. To be honest, you don’t know why you ever reset in the first place, but you know you’ll never go back.

 _Thanks, mom,_ you think happily, a slightly bittersweet smile on your lips. It was really, **really** hard, trying to get back here (and you don’t want to think about everything that happened in-between here and back again, all the dust and agony and death and destruction), but it’s all worth it now.

And then your mouth opens of its own accord. “ ** _Yeah,_** ” Chara’s voice rings sweetly through the air (and you stiffen inside with fear because _nonono,_ this can’t be happening) as, trembling, your hands move on their own, reaching for the knife and _nonononono_! “ ** _Thanks, mom._** ”

As you turn towards the door, you catch a glimpse of yourself reflected in the mirror and, shivering, realize that your eyes are glowing a scary red.

**_hehehahahAHAHAH_ **

__

You’d felt so horrified, before, when you found yourself in what little remained of your world, alone in a dark abyss, and fully realized what they’d made you do. You’ve never wanted to hurt anyone, not really, and killing everyone? You just…

It’s just that, after you reached the surface, you felt so… so **unsatisfied**. Like something was wrong with the world you were in, like something was **missing**. You’d hadn’t been happy, and you hadn’t been able to help but think that maybe, **maybe** , there’d been another way: something you missed. A better world you could have created. Another ending that would have been better.

So you reset everything. That had been your first big mistake. Your second one was nowhere near as obvious: it’d just been a realization you had. You were talking to Undyne, desperately trying to think of something new to say or do to try to create this better future, and then a thought occurred to you.

_I could hurt her._

It took you a minute to process that terrible idea. Of course you weren’t gonna hurt Undyne: she was your friend! What good would **that** do? Violence was never the answer!

Except… it wouldn’t really hurt her, would it? Sure, it’d hurt her for a little bit, but then you could just load and everything would be back the way it was before and no one would be the wiser, and maybe that would fix everything and get rid of this nagging feeling of _wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong_ —

You’d considered it for a minute, and then shaken your head: you hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something could—would—go wrong, and you knew you couldn’t risk that.

And then you’d thought about it some more, and you’d come to another conclusion. You couldn’t risk it with **Undyne** , anyway. So you abandoned your attempt at conversation and tried for a full reset. And then, for the first time ever, when that other sight that you had been able to tap into since you woke up tugged at you—the one with the little white-framed box with your scarlet soul in it and FIGHT and ACT and ITEM and MERCY—you had chosen to fight. “No, the dummies are not for fighting,” Toriel had reprimanded, a mildly concerned lilt in her musical voice. “We do not want to **hurt** anyone… do we?”

You’d loaded, going back to your last save point—hardly before you could even process the fact that you had. And, sure enough, when you’d come back, the dummy was perfectly intact. There was no sign anything had happened. Flowey hadn’t lied to you: no one would know. There’d be no sign. So… since there was no difference, no adverse effects on anyone, then you—you hadn’t really done anything **wrong** , right?

So, even though you knew you didn’t **want** to, your curiosity had driven you forwards anyway, and somehow had convinced you to try fighting a monster. You still don’t know why you had succumbed to that desire: now, when you think about it, you know that the logic that’d guided you just hadn’t made sense. You’re sure now that, somehow, Chara had convinced you to do it: probably even planted that seed of wrongness in your head to make you reset in the first place.

Of course, the problem wasn’t really that you’d fought the monster. It was that you did a lot more damage than you expected to, and—to your shock—the Froggit had exploded into powdery dust after two mere hits. A fine layer of ashy residue had settled on your hands as you stared down at the empty space where the monster had been, some blank and stunned and empty emotion twisting in your chest… and something more than that.

You knew all too well that you shouldn’t be happy about having done this. You knew that the monster was a person too, someone who’d had family and friends and a life of its own and you’d **murdered** it and that was a **terrible** thing to do and you didn’t want to be like all the people that had hurt you—

And yet.

And yet that feeling flooding you hadn’t been remorse. It was… it was like joy: some sort of twisted, warped delight that felt foreign to you. And, since you’d already hurt **one** , what harm would doing it to **another** one really do? You could just reset later so it’d all be fine because it wasn’t like they’ll stay dead for long, right? It’s not like you killed them forever, not like they were dead in the _gonegonegonenevercomingback_ sense, not like they said your parents were (not that you ever knew your parents to begin with). It’d all start over so it didn’t really matter, did it? When you thought about it, you weren’t doing anything wrong, because nothing mattered. The voice whispering to you, asking where the knives are… it didn’t matter either. Nothing did!

 You hadn’t even realized something was very, very wrong when you were standing in front of Flowey and he’d been calling you Chara again. Yeah, you should have realized that someone else was in control of you at that point, but you just… you hadn’t. Because of their influence, you just hadn’t cared about what he’d said. You hadn’t cared about **anything**.

And you’d kept killing anyway, even though you knew it was wrong, because you hadn’t been able to get them out of your head, and you hadn’t even been sure when you were in control or when this Chara was but it had to be all their fault because you didn’t want to hurt anyone, did you? You hadn’t wanted to hurt Toriel or Papyrus or Undyne or Mettaton, but yet you kept killing another and another and another and another, and then you were in front of Sans and his eyes burned with a cyan-gold fire that you’d never seen before and “on days like these, kids like you… s h o u l d b e b u r n i n g i n h e l l,” and then your hands were moving of their own accord to pound Flowey ( ** _always were a crybaby, Asriel_** ) into the ground, into dust—

And then you’d found yourself—well, your soul, seeing as Chara had destroyed your body and everything else—floating through a dark, empty, cold abyss that was only lit by the dim glow coming from you. Lost. Cold. Alone. Guilty. And afraid, so afraid of the darkness encompassing you. And you’d realized what they’d made you do, and you’d been so, so guilty, so ashamed that you hadn’t been able to stop them from using you like a puppet. So when you’d been given the choice to bring it all back, well, it was the least you could do, wasn’t it? Even if the price for recreating the world was your soul.

You hadn’t really considered the fact that, if Chara brought back the world, then you would come back to life, too. And it certainly hadn’t occurred to you that, though Chara would never again permanently erase the world, they’d never leave it in peace, either.

Maybe you’d doomed the world to a worse fate than if you’d left it dead.

But no, you can’t let yourself believe that. There has to be a way for you to fix all of this, to get Chara out of your head, to get your soul back. You just have to stay determined.

__

Chara! Stay determined…

“ ** _Oh, believe me, dad,_** ” the demon hums warmly, something almost kind in their voice as they guide your hand towards the CONTINUE button. “ ** _I will._** ”

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Act 1: Borderline!


End file.
